KSP2 should have no optional features

[Dirkidirk]

24 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

Actually, this applies to all optional features KSP has. CommNet is just the most recent one, I remember when people were saying the same thing about reentry heat when it got added (and sure enough, you can disable it).

How about a single unified career mode that you can play in a different way every time? Instead of altering the career by fiddling with world state, you alter it by making business decisions. A little randomness could be thrown into the mix, as well, so depending on the playthrough, some strategies could be more optimal than others. Instead of, say, monthly budgets being a difficulty setting, make them always on, but leave it to the players if they want to put an effort into getting a bigger budget, if they'd prefer to focus on a fully commercial launch business, fund their space program by selling scientific data, or satellite services. Add a randomized business environment and every playthrough is different, dwarfing KSP1's combinations of options and half-implemented features. If you played any other business game (well, any well-designed one), you'll know what I'm talking about. I've easily made your 1000-2000+ hours in Tropico series, where initial options amount to choosing an island, some optional modifiers (not features, more like policies you can also set in-game) and a handful of traits for your dictator. No optional features whatsoever, but the number of ways you can run your island is enormous, restricted only by resources you get (can't do logging without any trees... but you can have a lumber mill and import logs, for example).

...or you can go big.  

It's just a matter of having a big enough antenna.  Well, technically this one has a dinky feeder antenna boosted by a giant reflector, but the end result is the same.

 ... 

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Dirkidirk

[Guest]

@Dragon01 gets it. Thanks.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

3 hours ago, Dirkidirk said:

 

  Hide contents

oops, I typed the wrong solution.

I meant to say:

I am smart

  Hide contents

and your not 

 

 

I just make my interplanetary probes with enough reserve DV to become relays at the Target. It's rather lucrative considering you can do it for about 30-50K for the probe, and the entire stack with launcher often doesn't pass 70K. Take a 300K "x 3 course" contract on top of whatever else and you can net a interplanetary relay and up to 300-600k depending on the contract and stack.

[T1mo98]

12 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

CommNet is only optional because it came late and SQUAD didn’t want to break people’s careers. Wanting it to be optional in KSP2 is just knee-jerk conservatism.

It doesn’t need any sliders either, antennas are the sliders and whether you have them or not can be determined by initial world state and cost multipliers. 

People who don’t like to mess with relays would simply be ignoring probes and flying crewed missions only.

So yet again your argument here is that people should be forced to play exactly how you want them to.

Some people don't want to have manned missions for everything, yet here you are saying to people "I don't give a toss about how you want to play the game or what you want to do, you should all play what I want"

There's literally not a single disadvantage to a game having options, yet here you are acting as if having options makes a game unplayable or results in the death of the universe or something, considering how adamant and dramatic you're acting over it.
This honestly baffles my mind on so many levels because you are actively asking for the value of your money and the product you pay for to be diminished due to some crusade against player choice and freedom.
And why? The only answer that makes sense at this point is that you just want to control how other people play.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, T1mo98 said:

There's literally not a single disadvantage to a game having options

There are, and I've listed them in this thread, most of them in the OP. I would suggest you go over it and address them.

I also resent being imputed motives that I do not possess. You do not know what I want better than I do, and it is supremely arrogant (not to mention rude) of you to claim otherwise.

[0111narwhalz]

I'm seeing the merit in the "change constants" school.

Commnet can be circumvented by setting the minimum control level to full, with intermediate setpoints for each of the control levels we see in KSP today. If you don't want commnet, you don't need to use commnet or any hacks like starting a save with a relay network.
Thermodynamics can be circumvented by setting all heat generation/rejection coefficients to zero. Heat can come from multiple places, like engines, ambient atmosphere, ram heating, or machinery, so you should be able to dial each of those sources in individually. If you don't want to deal with heat, you don't need heat or "disabling" the thermodynamics system.

It's assumed that, when a player starts tweaking settings like this, they are taking the balance of their game into their own hands. This means that it is no longer the devs' responsibility to balance the game: as soon as the player enters this "advanced settings" menu, all bets are off.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, 0111narwhalz said:

It's assumed that, when a player starts tweaking settings like this, they are taking the balance of their game into their own hands. This means that it is no longer the devs' responsibility to balance the game: as soon as the player enters this "advanced settings" menu, all bets are off.

Then the "settings" belong in mods or a cheat menu. 

[0111narwhalz]

5 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

Then the "settings" belong in mods or a cheat menu. 

An advanced settings menu by any other name still smells just as sweet…

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

An advanced settings menu by any other name still smells just as sweet…

Not from the POV of the developer or designer. 

If your "advanced settings menu" is a cheat menu, that means that the dev doesn't have to worry that some of the settings break something and they can design higher-level systems, parts, tech tree nodes, and what have you without having to account for something being switched off or adjusted to oblivion. Cheats also don't need to go through QA -- if a cheat stops working for whatever reason, that's not a very big deal, whereas if a regular feature stops working, it is.

Basically, if the player uses a cheat and something strange happens, that's the player's problem, not the dev's. So I have nothing against console cheats or even a cheat menu, by all means put those in. 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Guest

[T1mo98]

1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:

I also resent being imputed motives that I do not possess. You do not know what I want better than I do, and it is supremely arrogant (not to mention rude) of you to claim otherwise.

It's also super arrogant of you to claim that you know what's best for every player of KSP who doesn't want to download a metric assload of mods by wanting them to be forced into a play-style that's catered just for you.

You can claim all you want about not having those motives, but actions speak louder than words, or in this case, you've spoken many, many words that proof the contrary is true.
According to all the posts you've made, you genuinely believe "It's my way or the highway" by the fact you refuse to engage with other people and dismiss any and all talk that doesn't agree.

[DStaal]

1 hour ago, 0111narwhalz said:

I'm seeing the merit in the "change constants" school.

Honestly, if the intent is to minimize testing and bughunting - I don't really see it.  For if/than statements you only need to test both sides of the if statement for full coverage.  For a variable constant, to have good coverage you need to test both the maximum and minimum values, a few in the middle, one below the minimum, one above the maximum, and at least one further out on both sides.

So you haven't really simplified your testing.  You've simplified your code a bit, maybe, but I'm not sure it's an overall help.

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, T1mo98 said:

It's also super arrogant of you to claim that you know what's best for every player of KSP who doesn't want to download a metric assload of mods by wanting them to be forced into a play-style that's catered just for you.

I don't. You would understand that if you actually read and considered what I've been saying here, instead of just having a knee-jerk rage gut reaction about it. You haven't said anything at all about the arguments I've presented in the OP and elsewhere in this thread. Instead, you're throwing around personal accusations. My interpretation of that is that you simply have no counterarguments and are upset about it. Customarily that's considered conceding a debate.

Therefore, unless you contribute something of substance, I'm going to ignore you in this thread from this point on.

Edit: I will point out to you and the others making that claim that I haven’t said anything at all in this thread about what the mandatory features in KSP2 even ought to be. I have only used KSP1 as a reference. Should KSP have CommNet, LS, N-body orbits, metallic hydrogen rockets, warp drive, or alien civilizations? I have no comment in this context. But if it does, it needs to be good, and it must not be optional. Let modders change it for those who want it changed.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Guest

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, DStaal said:

Honestly, if the intent is to minimize testing and bughunting - I don't really see it.  For if/than statements you only need to test both sides of the if statement for full coverage.  For a variable constant, to have good coverage you need to test both the maximum and minimum values, a few in the middle, one below the minimum, one above the maximum, and at least one further out on both sides.

So you haven't really simplified your testing.  You've simplified your code a bit, maybe, but I'm not sure it's an overall help.

Not true. Generally, changing constants does not change the underlying behavior unless your math is seriously complex. In which case, you don't allow players to change these specific constants, or put limits on how far they can be changed, if there's a chance the system will blow up if they go beyond a certain value. For the code, it doesn't matter whether the commnet cuts off just outside the atmosphere or just outside the solar system. It is, however, vastly simplified by omitting the checks on whether commnet is enabled or not. You don't need to test every single slider position, especially if said slider only goes into positive values. If you it's possible change a constant's sign, then it becomes more involved, but even then, there's only minus, plus and zero to check, not to mention not many of them need this.

Also, keep in mind that there are difficulty presets, and in the end, that's what will get tested. The average player shouldn't be expected to do the constant tuning, it's up to devs to provide a few sets of decent values. 

[Vanamonde]

Jeez, guys. This is the crankiest thread on the forum these days. Ease off on the tempers, please. We would not like to choose between having to either close the thread or start handing out warnings. 

[T1mo98]

39 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

I don't. You would understand that if you actually read and considered what I've been saying here, instead of just having a knee-jerk rage gut reaction about it. You haven't said anything at all about the arguments I've presented in the OP and elsewhere in this thread. Instead, you're throwing around personal accusations. My interpretation of that is that you simply have no counterarguments and are upset about it. Customarily that's considered conceding a debate.

Therefore, unless you contribute something of substance, I'm going to ignore you in this thread from this point on.

Go to the first page of this thread and read the fourth comment.

That's me, making a case against the points you brought up in the OP in a semi-lengthy comment positing multiple counter-arguments.
And last time I checked, you were the one to never respond to those arguments, so please don't go around saying stuff like "you simply have no counterarguments and are upset about it. Customarily that's considered conceding a debate", because that's factually untrue.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Jeez, guys. This is the crankiest thread on the forum these days. Ease off on the tempers, please. We would not like to choose between having to either close the thread or start handing out warnings. 

I think this thread is way past its expiry date. Please close it.

[Vanamonde]

Request granted.